It's the story about the New Yorker getting hassled by some schmuck cop for wearing a skirt and risking 'distracting drivers' that has really gotten Cycle Chic all hot and bothered.

Firstly, the number of women pedestrians wearing skirts in New York in the summer exceeds the number of skirts on bicycles. By a million or so. Give or take. So where are the cops going after pedestrians?Like this shot we nabbed a few years back. Where's the squad car harrassing the New Yorker on the left? Where are the police going after the motorists instead of Ignoring the Bull in Society's China Shop?

Skirts and bicycles. Skirts on bicycles. This incident in New York is much more than one silly cop. This is about the roots of Cycle Chic. About the roots of Bicycle Culture.

The bicycle transformed human society more quickly and more effectively than any other invention in history. From the 1880's and onwards, it served to liberate the working classes and, equally importantly, it served to liberate women for the first time in modern human history.

The bicycle provided women with an amazing transport form. Giving them independent and freedom of movement. Sure, the bicycle spawned the invention of the bloomers - pants for women - but skirts and have rolled hand in hand for over 125 years.

That bored, uninformed cop in New York may have driven away feeling like he was justified in hassling the cyclist in question. But his action is a direct affront not only to the bicycle as transport, but to female cyclists everywhere. Whether they wear skirts or not. Back in the early days of the bicycle women were spit upon - by men - for having the nerve to ride a bicycle. Let's not return to that.

One of the most popular articles here at Cycle Chic over the past four years has been:

As far as we can make out, the Short Skirt Protest will take place this Thursday at 7:00 pm. Ride starts at 7:30 pm.

A sassy ride, sure. But it's an important ride. Enough schmuck cops making up their own rules. Enough attacking the bicycle as transport for Citizen Cyclists in our cities. Enough Taliban-esque moralising about what people should wear on bicycles.

If you're in New York on Thursday, show up. Wear a skirt. Or a kilt if you like. This is fun but this is important.

Skirts and Bicycles:The golden Cycling Girl from 1933 surveying her bicycle kingdom above Copenhagen's City Hall Square. In a skirt.

15 comments:

bollocks. as an omafiets-pedaling lady in nyc, i wear a skirt every damned day. some days they're short, other days, they're shorter. no one's pulled me over for it, but in this new paradigm of harassing cyclists, nothing surprises me.

this is not unlike the kerfuffle over south williamsburg, brooklyn hasidic leaders getting the city to cut out bike lanes in their neighborhood, because they wanted to shield their residents from "immodesty":

Ugh. When most of cycling population wears lycra, it can be hard for those who never ride to understand it can be done in regular clothes. I rode a bike in my swimsuit in Key West, and nobody said a damn thing, even though me and my friends were getting honked at every block. And maybe they should ticket those guys who can't help but harass women on the street by honking instead of the women just trying to go about their daily business. That's an issue here in ATX where I just had to train myself to ignore them.

@Giulia: A marketing scheme would be counterproductive. If you're trying to sell highly recognizable bicycles, the last thing you want is antagonizing the police, for fear that vindictive traffic cops go out after your customers.

Why are authorities wasting their time prosecuting bikers?? This has been taken too far as this is not the first article I have read similar to this in the past week. Bikers are being punished for breaking the law, when really they are the ones doing us a favor by choosing to commute in an eco-friendly way. They should be rewarded, not punished!